Leona Stevenson is confined to bed and uses her telephone to keep in contact with the outside world. One day she overhears a murder plot on the telephone and is desperate to find out who is the intended victim.
Acting
Stanwyck's hysteria builds like a pressure cooker.
Direction
Split screens that turn a bedroom into a trap.
Sound
That rotary dial becomes the most menacing prop.

Director
Anatole Litvak
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Barbara Stanwyck performed this live on radio six times before filming; the movie's single-set bedroom scenes were shot in 14 days.
This rarity — a noir centered on a disabled woman — weaponized 1940s anxieties about telephone party lines and female isolation.